[WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

[Toby Bartels]

Geoffrey Thomas wrote in part:

>We don't need to _remove_ potentially "dangerous" content. We merely
>need to _restrict_ it for those who shouldn't/wouldn't see it.

Very well.  But we have no content that anybody shouldn't see.
(As for wouldn't, they have control over that themselves.)
Disagree?  Then the burden of proof lies with you, I think.

>Yes, I said _opening_. Again, the point of self-censorship is to create
>_more_ readership in the Wikipedia. No, this isn't some "war is peace"
>backwards talk. Either we censor now or somebody will do it for us.

Where is the indication of this, by the way?
The motivation so far is just so much speculation.

>If we censor properly, do so only where necessary,

Thus, nowhere. ^_^

>P.S. One of the reasons I'd like to censor is for my own preference, for
>example, when looking at the articles [[User:Viking]] edited when a ban
>was called for...and I realized suddenly what the articles were about...

I'd like to hear about your experience looking for those articles.
And how you'd have done things differently if they'd come up blocked.

>P.P.S. What's Sifter, and is it relevant to this? Has any work been done
>on that?

Sifter is a (now apparently defunct) project of Larry Sanger's
to place another site (the Sifter) on top of Wikipedia;
it would contain only those articles that had been chosen ("sifted")
by a team of editors as accurate, peer-reviewed content.
The process can be adapted to any group that wants to manage the content
for any reason (as had been discussed when it was active).
And Jimbo has indicated in the past a willingness to pay for such
(it would be bandwidth, since Wikipedia itself has the data).
Edupedia (LittleDan's term) could be built on this model.

I'm pretty sure that Sifter fell apart because people lost interest,
not because there was any difficulty in doing what had to be done.
So as long as y'all don't lose interest ... welcome, Edupedia!
Certified educational and unobjectionable for your child. ^_^


-- Toby